What You Do Is Who You Are: An expert guide to building your company’s culture

by Ben Horowitz

One specific incident changed my internal compass. A football player got into a car accident in Detroit. A young lady crashed into him on a bridge. He jumped out of the car like he was going to attack her and she got scared and jumped off the bridge to get away and drowned. It became a big national story. When he was on his way to the joint, all these guys were saying, “We’re going to stab this dude for what he did to the sister.” And I was like, There are probably people’s family members who think that about us. So I end up calling these guys out. And we have a tense-ass yard meeting. I’m like, “First of all, I don’t even know this guy but ain’t nobody gonna do shit to him.” To explain why, I go around the group and say to the first guy, “What you in for?” And he goes, “Attempted murder.” And I say: “Whoever you tried to kill, their family probably wants to fuck you up.” I turn to the next guy and he goes, “Assault with intent to murder.” I ask him how that guy’s family would feel about that. As I continued around the group the guys gradually stepped outside of their bullshit and realized we had all made poor decisions and that we’d been fortunate that nobody had seen those decisions as stabbing-worthy. It was my way of getting at the implications of perpetuating violence and how two wrongs don’t make a right.